Tommy Craggs

Everyone, this is Kinja. Kinja, everyone. A few things you should know.

Stars are gone. The system is now based around discussion. Comments that generate a lively response are privileged over those that sit awkwardly by themselves, eating paste.

If you start a thread, you become its moderator. You'll see a "Dismiss" button. That allows you to dismiss responses within your thread that you deem irrelevant to the discussion. You know all those times a reply has tread witlessly all over your finely turned dick joke? Now you can dismiss it. You'll be able to see replies to your initial post in your personal inbox, which can be found at http://deadspin.com/me/inbox.

You can share entire branches of conversations by clicking on the little gray timestamp.

If you haven't converted your Deadspin account to third-party authentication, you must do so now. Here's how.

Signing up using our "burner" account option is the best way to join the discussion with complete anonymity on the Gawker Media network. No part of this account is tied to any information whatsoever concerning your identity.

If you'd like to add your unique perspective to an ongoing conversation or join an engaging thread, you can sign up quickly, easily and anonymously by selecting the "burner" option.

Simply enter an available screenname of your choice when prompted, then be certain to write down or copy-paste the unique account key you receive.

A burner account does not have to be for one-time use. We welcome you to make this wholly anonymous incarnation your own. However, if you lose the "key" initially issued, we will not be able to retrieve this information for you or reset the account.

There is an algorithm in place that determines, for instance, which threads get bumped to the front of the line, but that doesn't mean we're stuck with the tastes of the Gawker Media WOPR machine. We still have some moderating powers, and the Comment Ninja will be around, albeit under a new name: Comment Faerie. As I said on Friday: There is no reason the discussion down there has to turn toxic and uninhabitable.

The Deadspin Up All Night! post isn't going anywhere, at least not for now. You'll have to adapt a little to the new threading, but in some ways I think it'll be better-suited to discursive message-board fare like DUAN!. Play around with it tonight.

To address a few concerns I've been seeing about the new emphasis on "discussion": We're not coming for your funny. We know that people never read Deadspin comments looking for Webster's Second Reply to Hayne or anything like that. Nor are we trying to recreate online the experience of listening to Skippy and Goatface's Morning Sports Holocaust on your local AM dial. "Discussion" can take any number of forms. A joke followed by a round of virtual applause is, as far as Kinja is concerned, a lively discussion. So is a well-informed exchange about hearsay exceptions. (Dumbasses will break through now and again; leave them be and lord willing the algorithm eventually will move them to the back of the line.)

Check out the rest of the help desk's FAQ here, and let us know if Kinja is giving you any problems. We'll have some sort of livechat around noon today.